SONS ASSAULTED

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 22585, 13 March 1948, Page 6

SONS ASSAULTED

FATHER IN COURT MONTH’S IMPRISONMENT (S.R.) WAIROA, March 13“This is a terrible case the way you have treated your children. Why. you are not human.” said Mr. V. E. Winter in the Police Court this morning in sentencing Rangi Clark, aged 41, a Maori labourer, to one month’s imprisonment, for having last night assaulted his two sons. Nelson, aged 9, and Benjamin, aged 11. i Senior-Sergeant Mcßae stated that when the police arrived at the defendant’s home they found three of the family of nine had been badly assaulted as was Mrs. Clark. One son had been thrown to the ground and then jumped on by his father, while a second boy had been thrown twice up against a hard bank.

The mother of the family had gone to a neighbour's house to seek police assistance and members of the family in order to protect themselves had to take to the bush in different directions. On making a search of the home, the police found that an attempt had been made to burn it down. They discovered some burning clothes and also that a hole had been burned through a wall. Clark, ryho had nothing to say, was then sentenced.